Panty Raid
by ilarual
Summary: Starting college was supposed to be the start of a whole new chapter in Jackie's life, but spilling her underwear all over the stairs before she'd even made it to her dorm room was not how she envisioned starting off… JacKim Week 2015, Day 1: Roommates


**A/N-** So JacKim Week 2015 has finally arrived... and, just like last year, I'm woefully unprepared! I've got to stop organizing fandom events and then failing to be ready for them when they roll around. But hey, I did in fact post this on time, so that's something! This year, thankfully, I'm not trying to make all the days connect into a single story (RIP JacKim Week 2014), but still. What is time budgeting...

* * *

Jacqueline's parents hadn't been able to travel with her. One bus ticket and the luggage fee for her three bags was already enough to make their ability to pay the electric bill this month dubious. She wouldn't even be going to college at all if it weren't for a copious number of scholarships. Her parents had a complicated relationship with public education, to say the least, and they were skeptical of her ambitions, but even they knew that earning a degree would give her an advantage if she really did decide to leave the rez.

Despite their willingness to support her dream, however, the fact remained that she was still alone and still struggling to haul her belongings up five flights of stairs to her dorm. She didn't dare leave one of her bags unattended downstairs for fear it would be stolen, but she was exhausted from carrying everything she owned all four blocks from the nearest bus station, and the stairs were steep.

Halfway to the third floor, she lost her grip on the brim-full suitcase she was hauling behind her. To her horror, it tumbled down the stairs and the clasps burst open, spilling a distressing mixture of underwear and toiletries across the halfway landing.

Mercifully the stairwell was empty at the moment- most students seemed to prefer using the overcrowded elevators- but at a busy time like move-in day, it was only a matter of time before someone came along to witness her hot mess. Tossing her other bags and her pillow to the top of the stairs, she tore back down to the landing and tumbled to her knees, hastily throwing things back into the suitcase as quickly as she could.

"Hey, do you want help?" a girl's voice called from the top of the stairs.

Jackie looked up and saw a petite girl of indeterminate ethnicity with bubblegum hair standing at the top of the stairs, with one hand on her cocked hip. "No, no! I've got it!" she blurted out. She tried to shove the rest of her delicates into the suitcase even faster, only to discover that without her precise job of folding and packing meant to maximize space, the bag wouldn't close.

Down below, she heard the stairwell door open on the ground floor, and she whined in mild panic, horrified by the idea of obstructing the walkway with a suitcase bursting full of underwear.

"Let me rephrase," the girl said. "Do you _need_ help?"

Jackie sighed heavily and rocked back on her heels. "Yeah, probably," she mumbled, thoroughly embarrassed to have gotten herself into this situation.

The stranger bounced down the steps to join her. "Look, you take your other shit to your room, I'll deal with your underwear situation. I don't give a fuck if people see me folding boring white panties on the stairs."

Jackie could actually feel herself turning viciously pink. "Th-thanks," she sputtered, and beat a hasty retreat. "It's room 564!" she shouted over her shoulder as an afterthought.

She found her room with no difficult once she actually made it to the fifth floor. Her door had two excessively frilly nametags the RA had pinned up: Jacqueline O. Dupré and Kim Diehl.

It was clear when she entered the room that Kim Diehl was already moved in, although she wasn't currently present. Her bed was made up with a pretty pink and yellow quilt, and about half of her clothes were already hung in the closet, with the other half strewn haphazardly across her bed. Jackie felt a sinking in her stomach as she looked at the pile; she hoped her new roommate wasn't a slob. She'd just gotten free from sharing a bedroom with two untidy sisters. Immediately getting stuck with a messy roommate just when she'd thought she was free would be terrible.

But she was probably getting ahead of herself. It was the first day of move-in, so this Kim girl probably just hadn't had the chance to fully unpack yet.

Jackie looked at the mattress on the available bed, and decided two things immediately: first, she was glad she had bought the egg-crate foam pad the university had recommended, because the mattress looked hard as a rock, and second, she was never, _ever_ bringing a blacklight in here. Contemplating the horrors probably lurking in the box-spring was a nice distraction from how mortified she still felt about her misadventure on the stairs, but it was also going to make her break out in a stress rash if she thought about it too hard. Hurriedly, she rushed to get her bed made so she could stop dwelling on it.

She had just managed to wrestle her bedding onto the uncooperative mattress and was starting to fold her jeans and pajamas into their respective drawers when the pink-haired angel of mercy appeared in the doorway, carrying Jackie's suitcase.

"Sorry, got held up by this loser with coke-bottle glasses. He took one look at your panties and decided I was the girl of his dreams," she said with a roll of her eyes. "I hate basic assholes like that. I'm nobody's manic pixie."

"Um… okay?" Jackie had no idea what that meant, and she fervently wished she would stop using the word 'panties'. "Thanks, by the way. I don't know what I would have done-"

"I figured. You seem like the easily-embarrassed type."

Jackie frowned. "I feel like that's not a compliment."

"It's probably not. I'm Kim Diehl, by the way."

Any timid hope Jackie had been harboring that this girl would hand over the suitcase and go on her merry way so that they never had to talk about this again evaporated. "So… so you're my-"

"Roommate? Yep," Kim said, popping the P with a smug look in her eyes.

"Oh my god, I'm so embarrassed," Jackie moaned, burying her face in her hands.

She heard the sound of her suitcase being tossed onto her mattress, and then Kim clapped her on the shoulder sympathetically. "Don't worry about it, Miss Prude, you'll just owe me one and we'll call it even."

That didn't exactly make sense, but it was better than awkwardly avoiding her roommate out of sheer embarrassment for the rest of the semester, right?

"So," Kim said, "You wouldn't happen to have brought any snacks with you, by any chance?"

* * *

The rest of move-in weekend went like this:

 **On Friday, Jacqueline discovered that Kim wasn't messy, she was just** _**lazy**_ **.**

"Hey, Jackie, it's time for me to cash in on that favor you owe me!"

She looked up from where she was sorting her pens and highlighters into her desk organizer, pinking up as she met Kim's calculating gaze.

"I'm going to meet up with some people I went to school with," she announced. "Be a doll and get my closet organized? You're so good at that."

Jacqueline glanced at the unruly pile of clothes that Kim had transferred from her bed to her desk prior to going to sleep the evening before. Then she looked at the slapdash way the rest of Kim's stuff had been shoved in her closet. "But-"

"Buh-buh-bah!" Kim interrupted, waving a chastising finger at her. "You owe me one, remember?"

Her brow furrowed in confusion. "But… it's your closet! Are you sure you want me messing with your things?"

Kim rolled her eyes. "Oh please. I folded every pair of underwear you own yesterday."

She had a point there. "Okay. How do you want it arran-"

"Just do whatever. I don't care," Kim said. She stuffed her wallet in her jacket pocket and flounced out the door with a cavalier wave of her hand.

Jackie stared at the fire escape map adhered to the back of the door for a few moments, astonished. Then, with a sigh, she sat about re-hanging Kim's clothes, preparing to sort by color.

 **On Saturday, Jacqueline discovered that Kim was a major foodie.**

"Ugh, this dining hall food _sucks_ ," she proclaimed, tossing her fork viciously back on top of her plate of veggie lasagna.

"The rice bowl's pretty good," Jackie countered, lifting up a piece of ginger-glazed chicken for Kim's inspection.

The other girl turned up her nose, however. "Fuck it, I'm _not_ eating this. Let's go out to eat."

"You can," Jackie said, "but I can't afford it."

Kim scoffed. "Please. I'm not letting you poison yourself. Come on, my treat." She grabbed Jackie's sweater and dragged her to her feet, towing her away from their table.

"We need to take our trays over to the kitchen, though," Jackie complained.

Kim didn't even dignify that with a response, just kept hauling her along. With a last reluctant look at her abandoned rice bowl, Jackie turned around to keep from tripping over her own feet and allowed herself to be manhandled out of the dining hall.

She found herself a little less regretful when Kim ordered takeout from a surprisingly upscale Italian restaurant and showered Jackie in breadsticks and more cheesy pasta than she knew what to do with.

 **On Sunday, Jacqueline discovered that Kim was actually a huge softie.**

For the first 72 hours of their acquaintance, Jackie was thoroughly taken in by Kim's steamroller personality. But when she arrived home after an atrociously long trip the bookstore that hurt her legs as much as her wallet and discovered Kim curled up on her bed, crying her eyes out over The Remains of the Day, she was forced to reevaluate her position.

Further investigation as the weekend ended and their first semester of college officially began, her discoveries continued. The microbiologist in her couldn't help but think of it as a study of sorts. Observing the Wild Kim: A Practical Guide.

Two weeks passed and somehow despite their contrasting personalities, Jackie found they had slipped from forced companions right into a warm and comfortable budding friendship. A number of the new friendships she was making seemed to be developing surprisingly quickly, especially compared to the slow growth of relationships she was familiar with on the rez, but her relationship with Kim became particularly close particularly fast. She blamed it the close proximity of living with her.

Or at least, she did until the Monday of their third week of classes.

Jackie came home after her late lecture, feeling like her backpack weighed three hundred pounds. She was fully prepared to put the communal microwave to good use on some of Kim's popcorn stash and veg for a few hours, but the sight that greeted her when she walked in the door stopped her in her tracks.

Kim was rummaging around in one of her desk drawers, bent over with her back to her, and the thought hit Jackie suddenly: _Oh lord, I'm gay._

"God bless yoga pants," she whispered.

* * *

 **Your feedback and commentary is always appreciated.**


End file.
